Low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) devices are monolithic microelectronic devices. In these devices, the entire ceramic support structure and any conductive, resistive, and dielectric materials are fired in a kiln simultaneously. Typical LTCC devices include capacitors, inductors, resistors, transformers, and hybrid circuits.
LTCC technology is also used for a multilayer packaging for the electronics industry, MEMS, microprocessor and RF applications.
LTCC technology as compared to other packaging technologies exhibits the advantage that the LTCC can be generally fired at temperatures below 1000° C. This can be attributed to the special composition of the LTCC material. Due to this low temperature, it is possible to co-fire the LTCC with at least one material selected from a group consisting of conductive, semi-conductive, non-conductive materials, and combination thereof.
In particular, LTCC may be used to fabricate microwave devices, such as microwave antennas that are compact and lightweight.
Typically, the microwave devices are fabricated using the LTCC technology by printing conductive, semi-conductive, and non-conductive tracks (hereinafter referred to as ‘track’ or ‘tracks’) by using thick film screen printing method. Typical dimensions of the devices (such as antennas) may range from about 50 microns to about 200 microns with a typical thickness in the range from about 10 microns to 30 microns.
In order to achieve desired attenuation losses of the microwave devices (or circuit) it is necessary that the tracks formed have accurate dimension.
It is observed that using the conventional screen printing technology for forming the tracks, the dimensional accuracy of the devices and/or the circuits is difficult to achieve.
Further, it is observed that the method of forming tracks, using the conventional screen printing technique, inevitably necessitates control of one or more of the following factors including:                environmental conditions;        paste properties;        operator skills; and        paste and substrate interactions.        
These factors affect the reproducibility of the tracks and hence the device being fabricated.
Thus, there is a need for providing a method of forming tracks on the LTCC substrate that obviates one or more disadvantages of the conventional screen printing technique. There is a need for providing a method that forms tracks that are reproducible. Further, there is a need for providing a method that facilitates in achieving the desired dimensional accuracy of the tracks being formed. Still further, there is a need for a method that does not necessitates control of one or more of the following factors including environmental conditions, paste properties, operator skills and paste and substrate interactions.